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HubSpot CRM vs Salesforce Essentials comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.2
HubSpot CRM boosts ROI through improved lead generation, revenue enhancement, and process efficiency, making it valuable for many companies.
Sentiment score
8.0
Salesforce Essentials offers good ROI with easy implementation, accelerating sales and benefits realized in about three years.
The ROI was always in a positive direction.
Growth Adviser at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
HubSpot CRM's customer service is highly rated for responsiveness, but live agent availability and technical issues need improvement.
Sentiment score
6.3
Salesforce Essentials offers responsive service with minimal issues; users praise its reliability and effective customer support.
HubSpot's customer service is excellent and fast.
Customer Success Manager Latam at ElectroNeek
Many users give it only a couple of minutes before moving on, so there should be ways for quick, direct access and follow-up, which is currently somewhat challenging.
President at iCIO, Inc
There is always an account rep that's available, and there is a technical account rep that is available for every account.
Sr Director of Global Inside Sales at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Their service and uptime is phenomenal.
Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG
Salesforce Essentials has excellent customer service.
Senior Learning Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
I would evaluate their support and customer service with Salesforce Essentials as pretty decent, diligent, and to the point.
Growth Adviser at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
HubSpot CRM is adaptable for different team sizes, integrates well, but some report scalability limitations in CRM features.
Sentiment score
6.9
Salesforce Essentials is highly scalable, supporting diverse teams from small to large, and is praised for easy user addition.
Handling around 100 to 150 users is fine.
Director at Big Billion Ventures Pvt Ltd
There are a lot of enterprises using it, however, even as a GTM for HubSpot, their target market is predominantly SMB.
Sr Director of Global Inside Sales at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
HubSpot CRM is a scalable solution.
Founder at a marketing services firm with 1-10 employees
It is one of the most scalable systems available.
Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
HubSpot CRM is highly stable and reliable with minimal downtime and seamless integration, praised by users for performance.
Sentiment score
7.6
Salesforce Essentials is highly stable and available, with few bugs or downtimes, though occasional automation delays occur.
Downtime is very rare.
Campaign Specialist at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Salesforce Essentials has proven stable, with no downtime that affects my work.
Senior Learning Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

HubSpot CRM needs better integration, customization, pricing, interface scalability, support, and enhanced analytics, email, and mobile app features.
Salesforce Essentials struggles with integration, UI, and pricing, needing improvements in analytics, mobile interface, and automation features.
HubSpot should establish some pre-deployable packages that, when contracted, offer basic functionality.
President at iCIO, Inc
A better CRM can be achieved by providing more customization features.
Director at Big Billion Ventures Pvt Ltd
The response time is slow.
Founder | Technology Head at janusmaad.com
Instead of requiring users to think about system navigation and clicking procedures, they can simply follow a workflow that guides them through the process.
Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG
There are other competitors, like Zoho CRM, that offer similar features at a lower cost.
Senior Learning Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
Salesforce Essentials operates in a table format where the entire user interface is based on tables, more specifically pivot tables.
Growth Adviser at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Setup Cost

HubSpot CRM offers free and enterprise options, but its pricing is higher than competitors despite customization benefits.
Salesforce Essentials licensing is costly but valued for flexibility and add-ons, with some finding additional professional expenses burdensome.
The cost of running Salesforce Essentials is significant.
Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG
The costs associated with Salesforce Essentials are substantial, which is a drawback compared to competitors who offer similar services for less.
Senior Learning Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

HubSpot CRM offers ease of use, lead tracking, marketing automation, and seamless integration, supporting businesses with customizable and user-friendly tools.
Salesforce Essentials offers robust features and user-friendly design but may be costly for some businesses.
HubSpot stands out for its ease of use, especially with sequence creation compared to other CRM solutions.
Customer Success Manager Latam at ElectroNeek
The main benefit that HubSpot CRM provides for me is that I can complete a campaign and rather than sending metrics to my sales team manually, I can customize them ad hoc based on the requirement.
Campaign Specialist at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The most valuable feature for me is when I encounter a company or a person, I can drop in their URL, and it pre-populates various details like address information and other contacts they might have.
President at iCIO, Inc
Their reporting and analytics features have a very significant impact on my company's operational efficiency.
Growth Adviser at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Salesforce Essentials is excellent because it is one of the most flexible CRMs available.
Senior Learning Solutions Architect at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
It is very customizable to specific needs.
Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG
 

Categories and Ranking

HubSpot CRM
Ranking in CRM
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Salesforce Essentials
Ranking in CRM
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the CRM category, the mindshare of HubSpot CRM is 1.2%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Salesforce Essentials is 0.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HubSpot CRM1.2%
Salesforce Essentials0.6%
Other98.2%
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Sadiq H - PeerSpot reviewer
Campaign Specialist at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Automation and integrated analytics have transformed how my team manages campaigns and deals
There are a couple of things which I would improve in HubSpot CRM. There are limitations with user limitations. I would want a feature where certain users do not need to export data and I want to be notified if anyone is exporting. That feature exists for a certain number of users, but it should also apply to lower-level users who should be notified as well. Second, the analysis and insights need to be provided on a weekly basis. For example, I would want to see that in this week we sent an email to a certain number of prospects, information about which was my highest open rate email campaign and which was my lowest engagement campaign, and insights from HubSpot AI that can be utilized. I would want to know which subject lines we gathered that received more attention as a form of data analytics information. Additionally, if I have one hundred contacts today and a couple of them are not active, for example, if eighty contacts are active and twenty contacts have never opened my email, I would want to trash them because they are not engaging. That kind of information would be very useful.
AA
Head of Commercial Excellence at Sartorius AG
Has provided a reliable service with responsive support and offers valuable features, though pricing could be more affordable
We are a large organization with 14,000 people. As a user, Salesforce Essentials is extremely easy to use. The complete rollout from minimum viable product to final acceptable product took two years for our global deployment. The business operations for our 14,000 people are managed by approximately 10 people on the business side. These business admins are responsible for sales operations, troubleshooting, training, and driving features and requirements from the sales and marketing organizations. Additionally, we work with product owners on the IT side and a team of programmers. Daily operations require about five people for IT work, security programming, system connections, and development execution. For day-to-day user support, we need eight to ten people in the business. We operate on Microsoft Azure private cloud infrastructure. On a scale of 1 to 10, I rate Salesforce Essentials a 9 out of 10.
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894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Performing Arts
8%
Construction Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
9%
Retailer
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business39
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HubSpot CRM?
The best thing about HubSpot is its clear workflow. Anyone can understand the flows of your contacts, your emails, their delivery dates, and the reasons behind their movements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HubSpot CRM?
The cost is about the same price, currently charged monthly.
What is your primary use case for HubSpot CRM?
We are a user of HubSpot CRM. We are not a customer because we use all the free modules of HubSpot CRM over the last years that we have used it. Because the CRM is free, we use the CRM. HubSpot CRM...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Salesforce Essentials?
Salesforce Essentials is very expensive, but it delivers exceptional value. It is a good platform to have if you can afford it because it has numerous add-ons and modules. Anything that Salesforce ...
What needs improvement with Salesforce Essentials?
The mobile access can be improved in several ways. Salesforce Essentials operates in a table format where the entire user interface is based on tables, more specifically pivot tables. This is not v...
What is your primary use case for Salesforce Essentials?
I have experience with Salesforce Essentials' Tableau and Salesforce Marketing Cloud, but not extensively. I was more focused on their CRM platform, specifically the core CRM and sales basics. My e...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

digimind, easyrecrue, software2, subaru, suzuki
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Find out what your peers are saying about HubSpot CRM vs. Salesforce Essentials and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.